The combine harvester, or simply combine, is a machine that harvests, threshes, and cleans grain plants. The combine was originally patented in 1834 by Hiram Moore, the same year as Cyrus McCormick was granted a patent on the mechanical reaper. Early combines, some of which were quite large, were drawn by horse and mule teams and used a bull wheel to provide mechanical power. Tractor-drawn, PTO-powered combines were used for a time. Some combines used shakers to separate the grain from the chaff and straw-walkers to eject the straw while retaining the grain. Tractor-drawn combines evolved to have separate gas or diesel engines to power the grain separation. Today's combines are self-propelled and use diesel engines for power. Rotary designed combines were significant advancements in the art in the late 1970s. Today's combines are equipped with removal heads, or headers, designed for particular crops. There is the standard head or grain platform, which is used for many crops including grain, legumes and many seed crops. There are also wheat heads, dummy heads or pickup headers, specialized corn heads, row crop heads, etc. The headers are all interchangeable and made to fit the particular combine feeder interfaces whereupon the crop can advance through the headers and into the feeder of the combine.
Conventionally, combine feeder housings are equipped with quick-connect coupling mechanisms at the interface of the feeder and the header so as to enable an operator to easily change from one header to another and connect the various feeder shafts to the header drive shafts. Attached to the back of each header are two (left and right of center) quick-connect latches. Attachment of these header latches is accomplished by lowering the combine feeder and driving the combine forward until the feeder interface equipped with two quick-connect yokes contacts the header latches. The raising and lowering of the combine feeder is accomplished by hydraulic cylinders which extend to raise the feeder, allowing the quick-connect yokes to slide up and against the quick-connect latches on the header and thereafter the header can be raised. As the feeder is raised, its weight holds it in place against the quick-connect yokes. The feeder is thereafter locked against the header with manual locking mechanisms set by the operator. When these mechanisms are set to their locked position, the header cannot unhook or fall from the combine feeder. The attachment of the header and feeder is completed by connecting various drive belts and chains that are necessary for the header to operate and by coupling the header drive shafts with the feeder jack shafts manually.
A device in which manual intervention can be avoided during the coupling and uncoupling of the combine feeder and the combine header would be a significant advancement in the art.